The Lost (The Maauro Chronicles Book 3)

by Edward McKeown

  “I do not believe the Destroyer will try to cross a bridge that is mined,” Maauro said while adjusting the 20mm gun on the crab. “It has decent sensors. But if it tries to come across, it will do so very quickly. The Engineers must be alert at all times, especially at night.”

  Pape nodded solemnly. “They know it. They have triple wired everything. There are even men ready to run out and set them off manually if nothing else works, even knowing they will go up with the bridges.”

  “Any word on the Destroyer?” I asked.

  “We still have scouts on the other side of the river. They haven’t seen anything yet. Since the sappers closed the pass with the landslide, either it’s still digging through or going around. Either way, we should have today, maybe tomorrow. Assuming it comes on. Maauro seemed to have given it something to think about.”

  Maauro shook her glossy black hair, the afternoon light bounced off it. “It will have analyzed the battle by now and realized our firepower is inadequate to penetrate its armor at normal combat ranges. My hope is that it did not realize I was sending waves of virus at it—”

  “Virus?” Pape asked.

  “Computerized instruction by radio for it to obey me,” she amended. “It simply did not receive them, or they came through as gibberish. But I have gathered some information from its attempts to target me with sensors. I believe that in a second attack I will be more successful. Plus, I plan to attack at close-range where my speed and plasma torch may be decisive.”

  “Close range!” Pape said. The expression on his face could only be described as appalled. “It’s more than a hundred times your size.”

  “Size is only one factor,” Maauro said, waving a finger at him. “Bigger is not always better.”

  He simply stared.

  “I don’t like the odds that much either,” I said, “which is why I will be there with her when we fight next.”

  Maauro put her tools back in her toolbox. “We have not discussed this.”

  “Because we don’t need to. You’ll need my help.”

  “A fragile bag of fluids and meat?” she snapped. “What help could you be?”

  “What help could I have been at the Artifact?” I said, outraged, “or are you forgetting whose plan it was to tip it out of space? Who saved your butt on the asteroid?”

  Maauro hopped down from atop the crab. “That was different. I malfunctioned.”

  “I think outside the box.”

  “You come with me and I won’t be able to find enough of you to put in a box!” Maauro was standing a foot away, glaring up at me.

  “Now, now,” Pape said, raising his hands,

  We looked at each other, then at him, then at each other.

  “Oh, Wrik,” Maauro said, “we’re having a fight.”

  Pape burst out laughing. We glared at him, after a few seconds he managed to stop, wiping his eyes.

  “Maauro,” he managed. “I don’t know much about you Galactics, but I don’t believe you’re going to leave him behind without chaining him up.”

  “Don’t give her ideas,” I muttered.

  He looked up at the ship. “Is Olivia awake? I wanted to take her down to the general staff. We are trying to reorganize our surviving artillery to be more effective. The general staff listened to her but so much of what she said is so new…we need her.”

  “I left her in the galley,” I said. “Go up to the hatch, turn right. You’ll see her.

  He nodded and smiled, walking off with a wave.

  Maauro and I returned to hooking up the replacement fire-control module in the crab.

  An idea hit me as we worked and I turned back to Maauro. “Is there any way you could tinker together some simple form of airbot to send across the river to check on the Destroyer?”

  She handed me the tool I needed before I asked for it. “I could modify a jetpack with a remote and a camera. It would do little more than pick up its location.”

  “That would be enough. How long to design it?”

  She smiled at me. “Already done. You forget my brain is segmentable. Most of it is occupied analyzing the battle with the Destroyer and preparing viral attacks. It took only a moment to design so simple a device. It will take about twenty minutes to make it.”

  I crossed my arms. “How much of your brain do you use to talk to me?”

  “Wouldn’t you be happier not knowing?” she asked, then closed a panel on the crab with a snick and tossed the tool in her bag.

  I sighed. “Probably.”

  Twenty minutes later we had the device. Maauro and I drove down to the river. The city on the other side of the bridges had never been completely settled and other than scouts and the occasional refugee, was now abandoned. On its far side, somewhere, was the Destroyer. We stepped out of the mule. Seddonese soldiers lined trenches on either side of the bridge and watched us curiously. Maauro quickly fixed wings on the modified jetbelt.

  “Without having to lift the weight of a human it should have decent enough range and endurance for our purpose,” she said. “I can segment enough brain power to fly it remotely and use thermals to increase its endurance.”

  I nodded.

  Maauro sprinted forward, accelerating to easily 60 kph, to cries of astonishment from the soldiers. She threw the winged belt with its cargo of camera and servos. The little engine lit and the jetbelt spiraled into the sky.

  “Let us go to the command post,” she said. “They will want to see this intelligence.”

  We rode back to the CP. Given how primitive Seddonese radios were, it stood close to the river bank, connected to outposts by more reliable communications wire and field phones. Olivia had used up our supply of spare radios on the Seddonese military and put the survivors of Bexlaw’s team on making more.

  We walked into the CP, set up in what had been a school auditorium in the small town on this side of the river, to find Olivia talking to twenty high-ranking officers as she tried to update a 19th century military into something that might impede their robotic enemy. I told Olivia about the airbot.

  “How will we see what it sees?” Romus asked.

  Maauro’s eyes glimmered and suddenly there was a holographic image of the city on the far side of the river. The collected officers gasped at the image, which was crisp and clear despite the daylight in the room.

  “This projection,” she said, “is in real-time. I can zoom in on targets on the ground as needed. We will proceed to the valley to see if our enemy is located there.”

  The room remained silent as the refurbished jetbelt with its camera zipped westward. In only a few minutes it reached the site of the massacre.

  “No sign that it tried to dig through what the sappers did,” Olivia said.

  I turned to Pape. “Which is the shortest way around the mountains?”

  He rubbed his face. “South is shorter but again it is swampier that way. North there are low rolling hills.”

  “North then,” Maauro decided. She looked at Pape. “Is it possible that it could try to cross at some other location than here?”

  “Not for sixty miles,” Enso said. “There are cliffs on this side of the river. Above that, it could ford anywhere though. We have forces at each of those crossings to warn us if it tries to.”

  “I think it unlikely it will do so,” Maauro said. “That would give us several days respite and it surely realizes that wherever it can go, I can get their faster. I believe it will come on directly trying to draw me into direct battle again as well as to engage large elements of your forces which it has destroyed with impunity before. Also if it appears on this side of the river we can withdraw across the bridges into the city, thus no advantage gained by circling us.”

  “So it will come around the hills and then enter the city,” Romus said.

  Maauro’s reply was cut off when, at the edge of the hol
ogram, the Destroyer stumped into view. The monstrous machine was walking northward, it ponderous steps eating up the ground. The Seddonese sat paralyzed, like mice before a snake. I realized that they had never before had a means of seeing their enemy live, in motion, without death swinging at them.

  As it now swung at the airbot. The giant head turned.

  “Maauro, dodge,” Olivia yelled.

  “The airbot is evading at its maximum capability,” Maauro countered calmly, “I am compensating for the evasive action so the images remain stable.”

  The beam lanced from the Destroyer’s head and everyone but Maauro ducked. The hologram vanished.

  “Unfortunate,” Maauro said. “I was maneuvering nape of the earth behind a hill. It simply fired through the hill, the debris cloud got our scanner. No matter. We know it went north. It will not be able to reach the city before sunrise tomorrow. We must engage it then.”

  Chapter 24

  Our last night, if it was to be that, would be spent in comfort. We were billeted in what had been an apartment in a reclaimed town north of the river. It had electric lights and running water and was not threatened by any of the vast towers that made up the ancient city to the south across the river. No matter how good the Seddonese had been as builders, I did not fancy sleeping under an eight-hundred year-old tower that hadn’t been maintained.

  We ate in the officer’s mess, a busy, if subdued, place filled with officers coming and going. Attendants in formal dress quietly served us. We had a table in a corner, guarded by Pape’s personal attendant. The food was good.

  “Rest, Wrik, Olivia,” Maauro said after dinner. “I will do final checks on all our equipment. Dusko, please follow me.” The Dua-Denlenn rose. He never questioned Maauro’s orders though I wondered what she needed him for.

  Olivia looked at the slender android’s departing back, then she turned to me. “Big day tomorrow.”

  “Yes.”

  “Possibly the last day for some, or all of us. If you don’t get that monster, Dusko, I and what’s left of their military will have to try for it.”

  “I’ll wish you luck now,” I said, looking out the window at the westering sun. It was early spring and the night would likely be cold. Too many of the trees hadn’t leafed out yet and the landscape still looked barren to me. “If you go into action that means we failed. I doubt we’ll be coming back if we do.”

  “Anyone you want me to tell if that’s the case?” Olivia said in an even tone.

  I looked down at my dinner. “There’s a letter to Jaelle in my cabin on Stardust. That’s all.”

  “I don’t know much about you, Wrik, but I doubt that’s all the people in your life.”

  “It’s all the people in Wrik Trigardt’s life,” I said, coming as close as I ever had to acknowledging to anyone but Maauro that this wasn’t my real name. “There was another life before, but that person was already dead and buried. So, no. There is no one else to tell anything to.”

  Olivia’s face was pensive. “If you live, you should do something about that.”

  “If I live, I may.”

  “You know the humans here make a pretty decent bottle of liquor,” she added.

  I shook my head. “Mission in the morning.”

  “It’s long hours till morning,” she said. “Come with me.”

  I followed Olivia out of the ad hoc mess hall. We went up to the next floor past the guards who were assigned to us VIPS, perhaps to make sure we didn’t bug out and flee for the Confederacy.

  Olivia opened the door to her room and waved me in. I followed. The setting sun had warmed it up and the room was pleasant. The futon-like bed sat in the middle. Olivia went over to a table and picked up a bottle and two tumblers. She poured for us both. The drink was good but I did little more than moisten my lips with it. Olivia took a solid draw.

  “You picked a curious time to embrace moderation,” she said.

  “I’ve drank enough for one lifetime already, I suspect.” I said, taking another small sip. “This is good. But maybe less good then a last sunset, a last view of stars—”

  “A last night,” she interrupted, “with another human being?” She gave me a frank look, downed her drink and stood, sliding her jacket off, then her shirt.

  She wore a dark bra under it, contrasting with the paleness of her skin, with its faint suggestion of honey. Olivia waited.

  I put the drink aside and walked up to her and took her in my arms. She was only a little shorter and barely had to tip her head back for me to kiss her.

  The taste of her burned on my lips in a way that made my senses swim. I was a little shocked at what moved me and made me grasp her tight. There was rightness to our mouths on each other, to the taste of her lips and her tongue against mine.

  I reached for the strap of her bra and unhooked it, freeing her firm breasts. She pulled my shirt off me and we tumbled onto the futon, shedding clothes. Olivia’s body, limmed by the sunlight, was a taut as a bowstring and I ran my hands over the smooth sleekness of her. Her breasts were soft against my face with the nipples quickening to my tongue.

  She wrapped her hand around my hardness and grinned. “Good, hard and long, just as I like it.” Olivia ran her tongue over my body, causing me to arch, but she slowed us down, kissing and teasing.

  “I do like it on top,” she said after a few minutes, when it was obvious we couldn’t hold off any longer. She pushed me onto my back, slid over me and lowered herself onto me, her sleek strong thighs holding me close. Olivia groaned with the pleasure of penetration and I tried to feel every sense of her: the scent of her body, the silkiness of her hair in my hand, the bounciness of the breast in my other hand. Her mouth tasted like wine.

  Sex had always been fun but this time there was something new. As we built toward a climax with each other I realized how we’d been made for each other by nature, male and female of the same species. I hadn’t felt this before with my first fumblings with girls on Retief in my teens, or the rare pros I’d been with in spaceports. Even with Jaelle, who had made sex and exploring each other a fun and guiltless game, there had not been this sense of fitting together so perfectly. I finally could hold back no longer and climaxed inside her, holding her close and saying her name over and over.

  She too was breathing hard and held me as tight as I did her. “God,” she finally said. “Worth waiting for.”

  I flopped back on the bed, my hands still stroking her. “I thought—”

  “Too much, as usual,” but she smiled to take the sting out. “I liked you from when we first met. This tonight, is just us tonight. We may both be dead tomorrow. If we aren’t… well, we will see. But we have tonight and that will be enough for now.”

  I nodded. Now wasn’t the time for complications, or even for guilt. For all I knew Jaelle was in another life as well. My time with her seemed dreamlike in a way, but I ruthlessly shut the door on that thought.

  “If that letter has to get delivered,” Olivia said. “I’ll have Dusko do it.”

  I nodded.

  “You’re still hard,” she said, rocking her hips to make sure that I stayed that way. “Maybe you’d like to be on top this time.”

  We made love again, more slowly and again I had this feeling as I rode her body that I was on the edge of knowing something… what I didn’t know… but some great truth. Or maybe it was lust, pheromones, fear and delusion. The sense of being one with some truth departed on the wings of the second climax.

  This time Olivia brought me a drink and refilled her own. I was face down and she sat on me so she could dig her strong hands in my back, massaging muscles I hadn’t known were tense. I don’t know when I fell asleep, I wasn’t aware of the transition but Olivia was gently shaking my shoulder.

  “Wrik,” she whispered. “It’s 0100; I let you sleep as long as I could.”

  I rolled up, a bit muzzy a
nd looked at her as if I could freeze her sleep-tousled hair in my mind.

  “Come on,” she said, “showers big enough for two and there’ll be plenty of hot water at this time.”

  Neither of us felt much like talking. We just enjoyed the sluicing of hot water over our bodies. I watched how it ran down her body, envying it the journey. We slipped next door to my room so I could grab fresh clothes. People were moving about; no military encampment is ever still.

  I closed the door to my room as she did hers and we looked at each other.

  “It was good,” Olivia said, “it had been way too long for me. If I have to go today, that’s what I wanted to take with me.”

  I nodded, tongue-tied and unable to match her frankness. “Thank you.” I finally managed. “I’d never quite… it hadn’t been like…”

  She smiled a gentle smile I hadn’t seen before. “This moment is just for us. Whatever comes or doesn’t come after today, let’s be sure we both keep this memory somewhere safe.”

  I nodded, wishing I could somehow express myself better, but Olivia started forward and I followed her.

  Wrik and Olivia appear at the command trailer. Dusko is still with the Sinner making adjustments on the balky engine. Pape and the general staff have huddled over a table looking down at maps by an electric light powered by a noisy generator outside. I am aware of more troops moving down to the river and the steady stream of refugees fleeing north. Children cry in the distance, upset at the cold and the early hours.

  I notice how close Wrik and Olivia stand. That and the way they look at each other suggest to me that there relationship has reached a sexual stage, a common biological reaction to the nearness of death. I wonder what it will entail for our future, if we have one, then dismiss the thought. We will be occupied enough this day.

  I wave Wrik over. He comes and places a hand on my shoulder, his usual wan smile on his face. “Good morning, Maauro.”

  “Good morning, Wrik. I have something for you.” I hand Wrik a pill. “This is a refined version of the mental communication web we used on Cimer. It will not last as long, nor have the range, which is safer for you. I am reluctant to use these save for short periods and with as much time between exposures as is possible. Still it will be safer than using radio communications near the Destroyer.”